Girl Scouts adds 'Cookie Locator' to Web site

You reach into the box, but your fingers close only on cardboard. ... Good Lord! You've run out of Girl Scout Cookies and you know you can't buy them online, nor can you trust chance to lead you to a sale before the end of the Girl Scout Cookies season. Besides, you want a second Samoa or a fourth Thin Mint -- now.

The 2009 Girl Scout Cookies sale begins today and continues through March 15.

The big news this year is the online "Cookie Locator," which allows you to find cookie stands outside local stores in your area by entering your ZIP code at www.girlscoutsosw.org.

Cookie facts

50 percent Approximate percentage of the Oregon/southwest Washington Girl Scout council's budget supplied by cookie revenues. Individual troops can derive as much as 90 percent of their income from cookies.

17,323 Boxes sold by Michigan Girl Scout Jennifer Sharpe in 2008, a record. At least 85 Oregon Scouts are expected to sell more than 750 boxes each this year.

"This is going to be great because it'll connect the customers and the Scouts," says Heather Law, who oversees cookie sales for the Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington. (And who earlier this week dispatched trucks laden with a million boxes of cookies across the state.) "In the past, we'd have to tell people, 'Go by Safeway or Fred Meyer on weekends and you'll probably find a troop selling cookies.' But with the new Cookie Locator, you can find all the scheduled sales in your ZIP code."

When you enter your ZIP code, a calendar comes up with sites listed by venue. Click on each venue and you get a map of the location and a daily list of which troops will be there and when. It's as close as you'll get to buying Girl Scout Cookies online, which never happens for security reasons.

Law says Thin Mints and Samoas are the favorites in this part of the world and make up about half the total ordered. New for this year is the Dulce de Leche, a cookie with caramel chips and caramel drizzles.

Girl Scout Cookies have been hit by economic downsizing this year, too. Prices in Oregon are the same as last year, but some cookies will be smaller, there might be fewer to a box and/or package weights will be slightly lower because of increased ingredient and shipping costs.

Thin Mint, Trefoil and Do-Si-Do packages are lighter by an ounce, says Lindsay Buchele Yale at the Portland firm that handles publicity for the regional Girl Scout council.